The Newman Resident

by Charles Swift

  “Looking back,” Joseph said, “I wish I’d just kept him home after the visit. But he was back at the school, and the superintendent argued with me. He said I was making a mistake. He had his head child psychologist talk with me—”

  “Hunter Jenkins,” Richard said.

  Joseph smiled slightly. “Yes, Dr. Jenkins. He showed me studies, videos of happy Newman residents, everything you can think of. He even tried to convince me I had an obligation to prove an African American child could succeed in the school. ‘If you take him out,’ Dr. Jenkins said, ‘how will another black child get in?’ After several weeks of this harassment, I finally barged into the place and demanded my son. They told me the papers would be finalized the next week. I told them they had to be ready the next day. This was six weeks ago.”

  No one was looking at Joseph now, except for Richard.

  “I went to the school first thing in the morning to pick up my son. A couple of guards—excuse me, hosts—took me to the superintendent’s office, and he told me the news. Samuel had run away.”

  “Run away?” Richard said. “That’s impossible. That place is a fortress.”

  “That’s what I said. But the superintendent claimed Samuel was so upset he’d be returning home with me that he ran away. He said the security is designed to keep unwanted people out, not to keep residents in. He claimed he tried calling me, but I hadn’t answered. And he said he’d called the police.”

  “We can tell Richard about this next time,” Harold said.

  “No, I need to tell him now,” Joseph said, shaking his head. “I left the facility and called the police. I knew the school had never called me, but the police wouldn’t say if they’d been called or not. They said they’d keep an eye out for Samuel. I called my family, my friends, everyone I could think of. Some of them drove down from Boston and helped me look all over Manhattan. We searched every place we could. For two days, we searched. I even hired two private detectives. But nothing.”

  Joseph took a deep breath, looking down at his hands.

  “Somehow, the Solomons heard about my situation and contacted me about a month ago. I came to a couple meetings and listened, but I was searching for my son—I didn’t have time to trust strangers. Things changed two weeks ago, and I had something to say. I had nothing left to lose.”

  Joseph paused again.

  “The police found Samuel,” he said, “not far from the George Washington Bridge, lying beside the Hudson. Face down.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When Richard got back to the apartment, his pillow and a blanket were waiting for him on the couch. He hurried for his son’s room and made sure Christopher was safe, then collapsed on the couch. He was exhausted, but still had trouble getting to sleep until about four-thirty in the morning. When he woke up it was almost eight, and Carol had already left without saying a word.

  He went to Christopher’s room and opened the door. Christopher was sitting up in his bed, spelling out words with the Scrabble game, waiting for his father to wake up. All he wanted to do that morning was be with Christopher, sit next to him, try to talk to him, but it just wasn’t that easy.

  After breakfast, the two went back to Carol’s home office so Richard could get some writing in for the day. Christopher brought his Scrabble game and played on the floor while his father struggled over getting something down in the notebook. At noon, he still had nothing to show for the morning. Nothing on the page. He wasn’t surprised. Nothing in his life seemed to be working. Nothing with his son. Nothing with his wife. Nothing.

  Richard went over every word from the meeting the night before. He couldn’t stand not knowing what his son must have gone through at the school. His childhood had been stolen from him. And what would his son have to go through when he returned? The superintendent would be angry with Christopher for having been the only child to leave on sabbatical before they’d ended the policy.

  Forget Newman. What about now? Was Christopher safe now?

  All Richard could think of was some sweet, innocent boy named Samuel, lying face down by the river. He didn’t want to look at Christopher and see Samuel.

  But he couldn’t become paranoid, like those people last night. Maybe it was some horrible set of coincidences that brought those people together with such painful stories. After all, there were a couple of hundred kids at this Newman. Out of all those families, some were certain to have negative experiences, but that doesn’t mean all of them would. That doesn’t mean he had to.

  Joseph had shown Richard a photo of Samuel. He was a beautiful, healthy, intelligent boy—full of wonder at one time, his father had said. Full of life.

  The phone rang and Richard figured he should just let voice mail answer it. Maybe he should screen all the calls. But what was the point of having his son home if they had to live in fear? He ran into the living room and picked up the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, son.”

  “Dad. How’re you doing?”

  “Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. Your mother’s fine, I’m fine, the house is fine, and if we had a dog, he’d be fine, too. What we want to know is, how are you and our grandson doing? We were just talking about you two and felt like we ought to call. You know, grandparents’ intuition.”

  “We’re doing fine.”

  “Go get Christopher, would you, son? We’d like to talk to him.” His father called out across the room. “Hey, Grandma, get on the other phone. Christopher’s coming on.”

  “Hello, is this Christopher?” Grandma asked.

  “No, this is me,” Grandpa replied.

  “I know you’re not him. I want to talk to my grandson. Is he there?”

  “Don’t you want to talk to me, Mom?” Richard asked.

  “Sure. How are you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  “Great. Now get my grandson.”

  “Just a minute,” Richard said.

  He put down the phone. Richard had been excited about taking Christopher to Vermont to be with his grandparents, but after last night, he was afraid of that, too. Maybe he could find some way to keep Christopher home for good—make the sabbatical last forever.

  He called for Christopher to come to the phone.

  “I’ll be back in Carol’s office if you need me,” Richard said. He didn’t want to hear his son getting closer to his parents, only to have everything fall apart at the end of the summer.

  Richard sat down near the Scrabble board on the floor. This was no life for a little boy, spending all morning moving tiles around. Something on the board caught his eye. He noticed a word, then another. Just as he was about to kneel down to get a closer look, he heard Christopher coming down the hall and sat back in the chair. Christopher seemed a little brighter now, a little lighter.

  “Do they want to talk to me now?” Richard asked.

  “No. They hung up.”

  “Oh. How are they?”

  “They’re doing well.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “About you.” Christopher sat down on the floor and mixed up the Scrabble tiles. “About what you were like when you were a little boy.”

  “Why would they talk about that?”

  “I asked them.”

  Christopher looked down at the board, slowly spelling new words with the tiles. Richard wondered why Christopher would be asking about his childhood. And he wondered why he’d never told his son any of his own stories.

  “Can you use contractions in Scrabble?” Christopher asked.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think you could.”

  Did most six-year olds play Scrabble? This was good. Christopher was enjoying being with words, playing with them. Maybe the school wasn’t so—

  “Would you like to play Scrabble?” Christopher asked.

  “No, I really ought to get back to my writing.”

  “Oh.” Christopher messed the tiles up, then started putting them back into the box.

  Richard clo
sed his eyes. What would his father do now?

  “But you know,” Richard said, getting down on the floor next to his son, “this game is really all about writing, isn’t it? Let’s play!”

  Christopher smiled and started getting the tiles out. Richard let him take the lead, so they didn’t play the game so much as spend time spelling together.

  “You know,” Richard said after a few minutes, “I’ve got an even better idea. There’s a place I want to show you that’s full of words.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “What do you think?” Richard asked as they walked past row after row of wooden tables in the library’s mammoth reading room. Sunlight filled the room through the arched windows.

  “I’ve never seen so many books,” Christopher said.

  “They’ve tried hard to not let it change too much. This is a place you come to read books—not skim texts on screens or stare at holograms, but books.”

  “I need to read a book.”

  Richard smiled. “Let’s see what we can dig up.”

  They found several books for Christopher and a place at one of the tables. Richard started reading one of the books he got about Vermont while his son sat across, lost to the world in a collection of stories about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

  After a half hour, Christopher looked up and watched his father.

  “What are you thinking?” Richard asked.

  “Nothing,” Christopher said as he looked down.

  “Really, what are you thinking?”

  “I guess I wondered why you need to read books about Vermont if you lived there.”

  “It’s for my book.”

  “But you remember Vermont, don’t you?”

  “You can’t always trust what you remember.”

  Christopher nodded, then went back to his book. Richard opened another book and scanned the table of contents. He turned to about the middle of the book, then began reading. Occasionally, he’d take a couple of notes on his notebook and look up at his son. It was like Christopher had left the library, left New York, the twenty-first century. A light in his eyes transformed that shell of a person who’d obediently sat in his bedroom the first night back into an excited six-year-old boy.

  After three hours, Christopher closed the book, finished. Richard looked up. “Did you like the book?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it about?”

  Christopher held up the book so his father could read the title.

  “I know the name of it, but what was it about?”

  “King Arthur. And Queen Guinevere. And Sir Lancelot, of course. And swords and lances and horses and helmets and shields and the castle. Camelot. You can’t forget Camelot.”

  “That, my son, is something I will never do.”

  They checked out several books and left the library. Richard couldn’t decide if they should take the quick and dirty route home or the cleaner and safer route, and Christopher had no opinion. Richard finally decided on the subway to give him more time to write back at the apartment. As they headed for the station, Richard noticed up ahead a man and a woman entering a restaurant. They were several yards away, and their backs were to him, but they both somehow seemed familiar. The man had his hand on the woman’s back as she went into the restaurant. Everything seemed slow motion to Richard. He’d seen Carol wear that dark blue dress and scarf a month ago.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Time for bed. At least, Richard thought so, but he wasn’t sure what time his son should be going to bed. He’d been reading on the couch while Christopher was doing something in his bedroom. When he peered around Christopher’s door, he found him lying on the floor, sound asleep, next to his Scrabble game. His son had changed into a brown T-shirt and blue jeans, like he was trying to wear all of his new clothes in one day. Christopher was asleep, but he didn’t look at peace. Maybe he really wasn’t happy here. Maybe he needed to go back. Maybe the kids really were as happy at Newman as Hunter always claimed they were.

  He picked up Christopher, realizing once again how unused to being a father he was: he had this big boy in his arms, sound asleep, and the bed was still made, not ready for anyone to lie in. Richard laid him on the bed, on top of the covers, and took off his new sneakers. He got a blanket from the closet in the hall and covered him. On his way out, he turned around at the doorway, looking at his son one last time for the day. He wished he could close the door and lie next to his son and keep the world out. If there were just some way to stay in that room, the two of them, and not have to deal with anyone or anything else. No blank pages, angry wives, experimental schools. Just a father and a son. Together.

  Richard looked down at the floor and saw the Scrabble board. The tiles seemed carefully arranged, so he knelt down to get a closer look.

  THE STORY NEVER CHANGES

  He closed the door and went back to the couch, worn down. What story never changes? Had his son written that for his father to read, or was he just playing around with words? He thought they’d made some progress the day before, spending time together shopping. But that strange group meeting last night changed everything. The entire world had shifted a degree on its axis, and now everything was different. Before, he could always hope and pray that Carol would change by the end of the summer, that Christopher could stay home and share his childhood with his parents. Now, that dream brought its own nightmare. Even if they both decided to keep him home, what would the school do? Would they try something like they’d done with Joseph’s son? Or was his death even Newman’s fault at all? Maybe Samuel really did run away.

  The front door opened around nine and Carol came into the living room, wearing her dark blue dress and scarf.

  “Glad you didn’t have to work too late,” Richard said. “Were you pretty busy all day?”

  “Chained to my desk. I should’ve worked later.” She looked at her watch. “Where’s Christopher?”

  “He’s in bed.”

  “Good.”

  Carol sat down and took off her shoes. As she rubbed her feet, she looked up at Richard.

  “Get much writing done today?”

  “Let’s not go there.”

  “Go there? We don’t have to go there. We live there.”

  Richard leaned forward towards his wife. “Okay, Carol, let’s talk. What are you really upset about?”

  “If you don’t ever write, then the book will never get done. And if the book doesn’t get done, we don’t even have a slight chance of making any money off it.”

  “That’s not it. Come on, what is it?”

  “Don’t worry,” Carol said, standing up, “I’m not counting on a dime.”

  “Okay, I’ll play along. It’s money.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt—”

  “Cause if it is,” Richard said as he stood up, “maybe we could save a little by cutting out some expensive restaurants.”

  “I don’t eat out a lot.”

  “Sorry, I jumped to conclusions. Maybe you didn’t have to pay.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I saw you and some other man going into a restaurant today.”

  “What were you doing, spying on me?”

  “Did you have a good dessert?”

  “Look—”

  “Who was it? Someone from work? Someone at your gym?”

  “I don’t have to—”

  “Wait a minute,” Richard said, falling back into the couch. “It was Hunter, wasn’t it?”

  “So I ate lunch with him,” she said. “He’s just helping me figure out this Christopher thing. He is a psychologist, you know.”

  “‘This Christopher thing’?”

  “Don’t play stupid.”

  Carol left for their bedroom, pulling the door behind her. He heard the door lock.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can take this,” Richard said, looking up at the ceiling.

  “Maybe I should return home.”

  Christopher was stand
ing in the hall, holding his Scrabble box like most boys would have held a teddy bear.

  “What do you mean? You are home.”

  “To my home.”

  “This is your home, son,” Richard said, walking toward him.

  “But I only make you two unhappy.”

  “Oh, son,” Richard said as he knelt in front of Christopher, “you make me happy every day.”

  The little boy closed his eyes. His left hand started twitching.

  “Let’s get you back to bed.”

  “I didn’t ask to come to this place,” Christopher said, “or to be left in that room alone with the game. And I didn’t ask to be born. At least not to parents who don’t want me. I want to go back home where I belong.”

  Christopher ran into his room and slammed the door. Stunned, Richard slowly walked over to the door and knelt down.

  “You don’t really want to be a resident again, do you?”

  “I like it there,” Christopher said between sobs. “The teachers are nice. They call me their little lion cub. But Carol doesn’t want me here. You don’t want me here. What am I doing here?”

  “I want you—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Richard. I’m just a kid, but I’m not stupid.”

  “Christopher—”

  “Just send me back home.”

  “Son—”

  “Go away.”

  Richard slowly got up. He leaned against his son’s door. His heart told him to not go away, to go into his son’s room and talk with him. He had no idea what he would say, but maybe the words would come. He just kept hearing those words: “Go away.” Why didn’t he ever know the best thing to do?

  Richard listened. He could hear Christopher trying not to cry, or at least trying not to be heard. Maybe he should try one more time.

  “Christopher. I really didn’t mean—”

  “Go away.”

  He went away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “What’s going on?” Richard whispered into his cell phone.

  “Richard, I didn’t know you cared.”